Can I omit data partitions when restoring my main disk?

Steve, the answer to your question(s) may depend on what caused your PC to crash and to no longer boot?

Your full disk backup will include more partitions than you just see in Explorer as there are critical hidden / system partitions that work along with the main Windows OS C: partition, so if you are doing a selective restore to get the PC working again, then you need to include those hidden / system partitions as well as C:

Normally you would select to do a Disk level recovery which would put all partitions back as they were when the backup image was created.

To do a Partitions recovery, you will need to select both the partitions to recover and then select where these are to be restored to individually.

Personally, for your scenario, then I would make a separate backup of the data partitions using the rescue media before starting on the partition recovery - this would allow you to have an up to date backup of your user data, including any changed data since the disk backup was created.

You could also test just restoring the hidden / system partitions located prior to the C: partition to see if that would fix the boot issue as these partitions contain the boot configuration data and will definitely stop the PC from booting if this has been corrupted in any way!

If restoring those small hidden / system partitions does change the problem, then restore the C: partition on its own and test again.

Steve Smith wrote:

Steve, the answer to your question(s) may depend on what caused your PC to crash and to no longer boot?

Your full disk backup will include more partitions than you just see in Explorer as there are critical hidden / system partitions that work along with the main Windows OS C: partition, so if you are doing a selective restore to get the PC working again, then you need to include those hidden / system partitions as well as C:

Normally you would select to do a Disk level recovery which would put all partitions back as they were when the backup image was created.

To do a Partitions recovery, you will need to select both the partitions to recover and then select where these are to be restored to individually.

Personally, for your scenario, then I would make a separate backup of the data partitions using the rescue media before starting on the partition recovery - this would allow you to have an up to date backup of your user data, including any changed data since the disk backup was created.

You could also test just restoring the hidden / system partitions located prior to the C: partition to see if that would fix the boot issue as these partitions contain the boot configuration data and will definitely stop the PC from booting if this has been corrupted in any way!

If restoring those small hidden / system partitions does change the problem, then restore the C: partition on its own and test again.

Hi Steve, we meet again! Sorry you're catching me with another problem. I've been meaning to add a post telling you that thanks to our earlier conversation I set up a flashdrive as my rescue medium, with the backups on a normal external disk. Right now I'm very glad I did! I appreciate your earlier help with that.

What happened now was that Windows had a rash of problems all to do with recognising external drives under Parallels on my Mac. I closed it, and then it wouldn't restart, but put me on its own recovery screen. The first method, "Startup Recovery", didn't work (nor did "Start Windows normally"); so I considered letting it recover from a previous restore point, but then saw that my latest ATI backup was several days more recent. So I used the ATI flashdrive to get started on that. Hence my question here.

I like your suggestion above of backing up the data partitions separately; sadly, it was too late for that, since Windows wouldn't start. So I did actually start it restoring the entire hard drive—it's still busy with that, and likely to be so for quite some time I expect! I just didn't know what was possible, but it it happens again I'll remember your initial suggestion of just restoring the hidden system partition before C:, and see if that solves the problem; and if not, then restoring just the C: partition. (From what you're saying it's obvious that my first assumption was correct, i.e. I needn't have set it to restore all the data partitions… Ah well, I continue to live and learn!)

Thanks again for your help!

Steve, hope that the disk restore continues and completes successfully.

For consideration, with my own system I have tried to keep my C: partition to hold only the Windows OS and all installed applications with the bare minimal of any user data present.

I partitioned the drive to create a 'data' partition and redirected the normal Windows libraries for Docs, Pictures, Videos etc so that these are found on that data partition..

Taking this approach, I make separate backups, a regular backup of C: and the required hidden / system partitions (including the Windows Recovery one), and another of the data partition where I use both a Disk & Partition backup plus also Files & Folders backups.

I like the ability to recover either of these partitions separately for if the need arises, plus if MS manage to screw up an update, then I only need to recover that one backup image to get back to the starting grid.

Belt & Braces is always the order of the day, better to have too many backups than too few!

Steve Smith wrote:

Steve, hope that the disk restore continues and completes successfully.

For consideration, with my own system I have tried to keep my C: partition to hold only the Windows OS and all installed applications with the bare minimal of any user data present.

I partitioned the drive to create a 'data' partition and redirected the normal Windows libraries for Docs, Pictures, Videos etc so that these are found on that data partition..

Taking this approach, I make separate backups, a regular backup of C: and the required hidden / system partitions (including the Windows Recovery one), and another of the data partition where I use both a Disk & Partition backup plus also Files & Folders backups.

I like the ability to recover either of these partitions separately for if the need arises, plus if MS manage to screw up an update, then I only need to recover that one backup image to get back to the starting grid.

Belt & Braces is always the order of the day, better to have too many backups than too few!

Thanks, Steve — I'm glad to say the restore completed successfully and I now have Windows back again!

I like your suggestion of a strict separation between system/programs and data. I've copied what you said for future reference, and once I finally get all my Windows and Mac backups operating properly I'll see if I can do something similar. How do you redirect the normal Windows libraries to a partition other than C:?

But in the meantime, if I'm understanding you correctly, I can opt not to restore the data partitions, and this doesn't mean ATI will delete them? I.e., it'll just restore whatever partitions I tell it to, and the others will remain unchanged? That's what I wasn't sure of, and why I went for a full recovery of everything to be on the safe side.

Thanks again for your help with this.

Steve, see the image below of where to change the library location to another partition.

Open the Properties for the library, i.e. Documents above, then the Location tab then you can select the new location and then use the Move button to move the data to that location.

Steve Smith wrote:

Steve, see the image below of where to change the library location to another partition.

Open the Properties for the library, i.e. Documents above, then the Location tab then you can select the new location and then use the Move button to move the data to that location.

Many thanks for this, Steve. I'm thinking seriously about applying the equivalent procedure in Windows 7. It would  be a lot quicker, I'm sure, just to restore a minimal drive C: without all its data in case of a system crash.

Appreciate your help, as always.